Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot 35 - Third Girl (1966) by Agatha Christie

Author:Agatha Christie [Christie, Agatha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Adult, Classics
ISBN: 9781611737400
Amazon: 1611737400
Goodreads: 16332
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1966-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Poirot seldom used the key to his flat. Instead, in an old-fashioned manner, he pressed the bell and waited for that admirable factotum, George, to open the door. On this occasion, however, after his visit to the hospital, the door was opened to him by Miss Lemon.

“You’ve got two visitors,” said Miss Lemon, pitching her voice in an admirable tone, not as carrying as a whisper but a good many notes lower than her usual pitch. “One’s Mr. Goby and the other is an old gentleman called Sir Roderick Horsefield. I don’t know which you want to see first.”

“Sir Roderick Horsefield,” mused Poirot. He considered this with his head on one side, looking rather like a robin while he decided how this latest development was likely to affect the general picture. Mr. Goby, however, materialised with his usual suddenness from the small room which was sacred to Miss Lemon’s typewriting and where she had evidently kept him in storage.

Poirot removed his overcoat. Miss Lemon hung it up on the hall stand, and Mr. Goby, as was his fashion, addressed the back of Miss Lemon’s head.

“I’ll have a cup of tea in the kitchen with George,” said Mr. Goby. “My time is my own. I’ll keep.”

He disappeared obligingly into the kitchen. Poirot went into his sitting room where Sir Roderick was pacing up and down full of vitality.

“Run you down, my boy,” he said genially. “Wonderful thing the telephone.”

“You remembered my name? I am gratified.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly remember your name,” said Sir Roderick. “Names, you know, have never been my strong point. Never forget a face,” he ended proudly. “No. I rang up Scotland Yard.”

“Oh!” Poirot looked faintly startled, though reflecting that that was the sort of thing that Sir Roderick would do.

“Asked me who I wanted to speak to. I said, put me on to the top. That’s the thing to do in life, my boy. Never accept second in charge. No good. Go to the top, that’s what I say. I said who I was, mind you. Said I wanted to speak to the top brass and I got on to it in the end. Very civil fellow. Told him I wanted the address of a chap in Allied Intelligence who was out with me at a certain place in France at a certain date. The chap seemed a bit at sea, so I said: ‘You know who I mean.’ A Frenchman, I said, or a Belgian. Belgian, weren’t you? I said: ‘He’s got a Christian name something like Achilles. It’s not Achilles,’ I said, ‘but it’s like Achilles. Little chap,’ I said, ‘big moustaches.’ And then he seemed to catch on, and he said you’d be in the telephone book, he thought. I said that’s all right, but I said: ‘He won’t be listed under Achilles or Hercules (as he said it was), will he? and I can’t remember his second name.’ So then he gave it me. Very civil sort of fellow. Very civil, I must say.

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